I like working with all my clients however feel particularly drawn to mental health issues including depression, anxiety and OCD and personality disorders especially borderline and histrionic and I usually completely fall for my narcissists too, which is beautiful because I can then have an understanding of what is happening in relationships around them. I also love working with the issue of self love, which is often central to many of the difficulties I encounter in my practice and disguises itself in many different reactions to the world around us.
Below are some issues that my clients often present just to give you an idea of the way in which I work.. I thank my clients for all they have taught me and for the truly beautiful meeting between two people.
Depression – my understanding has developed to see depression as grief and loss that has been unfelt and unmoved. Life is full of grief and loss, loss of loved ones – through death or separation., ideas and dreams, our own idealized self. Often life at this time is in full swing motion and we find it hard to find the time to grieve. A more basic loss is what i call the primary loss - the lack of connection and bonding that the infant felt with their primary caregiver.. A child does not have the capacity to grieve and that loss and any loss that follows is experienced tenfold thereafter. When grief and loss are unfelt in this way we expend a lot of energy repressing feelings and numbing ourselves thus deadening our lives ,- what can be classified as depression. So we then have a choice. - do we chose to remain deadened or start to feel? How do I go about beginning to feel again? This is where therapy comes in. For one hour a week we allow ourselves the time to stop and think, feel, speak words that have never been spoken and sense sensations that were never allowed to surface. This might sound dark and gloomy - but not if we introduce the aspect of joy. As we open ourselves to the darkness we balance this with opening to the light and experiencing more joy. The bird singing in the morning moves us, our daughter gives us a complement and we allow it to sink in, we celebrate our birthday for the first time in years and we love the wrinkle that develops by the corner of our eye, in fact we may also slowly begin to love ourselves. I also introduce cognitive and behavioral aspects, encouraging my clients to reach out into the world more fully, become more aware of their thoughts and learn how to talk to themselves and encourage practices such as mindfulness, exercise and yoga and healthy eating
Personality Disorders – I work with concepts such as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, mindfulness, radical acceptance and developing the self reflective witness to the present moment which accepts all that is happening both in the external world and the reactions we are experiencing in relation to that. When accepting what is happening in the moment we are then able to grasp the situation at hand and reflect on the possible choices we have. I ask my clients, who often react instinctively, to take a step back and imagine 3 doors with possible choices in the current situation. Do I react as I usually react? Do I choose another way? What can I do to choose an option that is healthy for my relationships but also true to myself? What do I want out of this situation? I also work on helping my clients develop a creative outlet for all the intense emotions they feel as well as reach out in the world and form more healthy relationships with those around them and get the connection and support they so need. and to slowly develop a strong and secure sense of self.
Low self esteem, confidence and issues around self love - Difficulties centering around self love and development of a strong sense of self is often at the core of low self esteem as well as chronic relationship difficulties and mental health difficulties. When my clients relate a chronic pattern of entering into unfulfilling relationships we often find a difficult relationship with the self at the center.. 'You need to love yourself' others haphazardly tell us. But how? Where do we start? I encourage my clients to start slowly - they may do some kind acts to themselves, learn how to feed themselves well, begin to use kind words when they mess up (Whilst accepting that they may also tell themselves unkind words too) , begin to ask themselves if they are comfortable in the current situation and with the relationships around them. We learn how to voice ourselves in our relationships in a way that is true and kind to ourselves and loving towards those around us as well as how to contain and hold the fear that others will reject us if we .begin to stand up for ourselves. It is important to note that when we express our needs to others this is not only an act of self love it is also an act of love to the other as it means that we value our relationship with them so much that we choose to enter it with our full selves. It is truly an honour to see my clients enter into a new relationship with themselves and learn to be kind and loving towards themselves.
Chronic Trauma - We often think of Trauma as the product of a single horrific event. But any even.t, or more often series of events, that we experience but don't have the inner resources or outside support to deal with is traumatizing. . Nowadays there is more awareness on chronic post traumatic stress disorder or CPSTD, which is similar to PSTD but rather than one specific event being identified as the source of the stress it is usually a series of events, often in childhood, that cause this condition. Situations are especially traumatic as children as we do not have the inner capacity to deal with difficult situations. without a strong holding environment Therefore a neglectful parent is hurtful to any individual but to a child it is deeply traumatic as without a 'good enough' parent a child cannot develop the sense that they are good, lovable individuals and that the world is a safe place - and so lives in terror, a terror that is often taken into adulthood. .So neglect, emotional detachment, any sort of abuse, the many types of Toxic parents - narcissists, alcoholics, substance abusers, those with deep seated personality disorders or serious mental health issues can all contribute to an atmosphere that is traumatic for the child. Working with trauma is a complex and sensitive issue and the importance of a good therapeutic relationship is essential for this kind of work so that the client and therapist can negotiate a way forward where the experience of working through the past is not retraumatising.. What I find essential is to create a space where the client can put their experience into words and metaphor, be heard and believed and even more importantly hear and believe themselves and to think thoughts and say words that were never allowed expression. However I do not work on the past simply for the sake of the past- but because it colours the way we see the present, how we deal with current experiences and how we are in relation to those we love. It is therefore important to reflect on the present moment and the way we are in relation to ourselves, others and the environment and couple this with large doses of self acceptance and love, and finally choicefulness. especially in the way we chose to act. Just because we feel an emotion does not mean that we need to allow it to dictate what direction we take and how we act. We recognize and honour the emotion and the information it brings and where it is coming from, but then take time to choose whether to follow it or exercise our right to be in a different way.
Chronic Illness and Pain - Many people think of illnesses as purely psychological or physical. Often illnesses that are easily explained by medical science are considered to have a physical basis whereas those that are less easily explained are considered purely psychological. However new evidence is pointing to the importance of psychological factors in illnesses previously described as physical and physical components in illnesses that were derogatorily referred to as 'all in your head'.. Regardless of the way future research will proceed,I have come to believe in the importance of addressing the psychological aspects of any illness, both in terms of psychological phenomena that may be acerbating the illness and and the devastating effect having a chronic illness can have on psychological well-being, Never in the history of humanity have individuals needed to endure physical suffering in such an individualistic society, where we are expected to just 'be strong', smile and get on with it without inconveniencing others around us. I hope that you are not going through suffering alone but if you are please reach out anywhere you can and receive the support that we all need.